With drink dispensing devices, in particular automatic drink machines, which discharge liquid food, such as for example hot drinks, soups and milk products, the liquid food is often heated by steam which is introduced into the liquid. Here, the condensing steam dissipates its energy into the liquid to be heated without a significant amount of water being transported into the liquid. Using steam, a relatively large amount of energy can be efficiently introduced into the liquid to be heated in a very short time. Therefore, heating using steam is particularly suitable for liquid foods which are only heated portion by portion on request.
With known drink dispensing devices the heating takes place using steam in a heating chamber in which the liquid and steam are introduced. These heating chambers must however be cleaned at regular intervals, which is cost-intensive, in order to prevent unwanted germ growth and/or contamination of the following prepared drinks.